1959 OCONOMOWOC

In my previous story, “1946…A SEASON WITH VARIOUS NOTES…PART 1” I mentioned that the Associated Press began posting lists of undefeated teams each season from 1945-1954.  The 1946 list included Oconomowoc, a team that had an 8-0-0 record.  Coached by Virgel Licht from 1939-64 the Racoons or as they were nicknamed back then, the “Cooenys or Coon’s”.

Wisconsin State Journal, November 1, 1946

Having posted two previous undefeated seasons, both having 7-0-1 records, 1946 was the first undefeated, untied team for Licht as his men won the Little Ten Conference title outright.  They scored 161 points and allowed only 41 points.

From “The Cooney”, Oconomowoc H. S., 1947 Yearbook

Oconomowoc would have several very good years after 1946 but to most observers, the 1959 team would be their best.

1959

There were many stars on the 1959 squad as the team rolled up 279 points and allowed only 30 with five consecutive shutouts.

The Coaches…Line Coach L. Kroner, Head Coach Virgil Licht and Backfield Coach Wally Reams

After losing an early season game, 19-0 vs. Beaver Dam in 1957 the Cooney’s went 27-1 getting to the last two games of the 1960 season before losing 13-12 to Beaver Dam.  Over the 28-game stretch, Oconomowoc won 25 games and tied.  Overall, the team scored 828 points and allowed 175 in the 28-game run.

After scoring six touchdowns in the first 2 ½ games, star back Bob Monroe was lost for the remainder of the year.  Monroe was the defending Waukesha County 1958 scoring champion with 90 points, 84 in conference play.  Most observers thought that Monroe was one of the school’s best backs ever.  The scoring slack was taken up by quarterback Jim Braatz who had 10 touchdowns on the ground and tossing 12 td’s, end Bill Holden caught seven scores, and John Counsell ran, caught and returned six more.  The Coons scored 19 touchdowns on runs, passed for 14 and had six special team scores.  The special team touchdowns were on an 87-yard kickoff return by Phil Kienast and on five punt returns by various players.  Throughout the season, the team ran a reverse almost every time on the punt returns and this caused problems for their opponents.  Bob Monroe had twoscores of 86 and 75-yards in game two vs. Beaver Dam.  

In the season opener, a 46-18 win over non-conference opponent Monroe High, back Brian Cloutier scored a touchdown but had a hairline fracture in his right leg, just an inch above the fracture he suffered in 1957 as sophomore.  One of the interesting play’s occurred when halfback Pete Jolly, a lineman in 1958, intercepted a pass, sort of.   He snatched the ball out of Monroe quarterback Eave Grams hand as he was throwing.   Jolly stood still for a second, not knowing what to do then ran 35-yards for a score. 

It should be noted that the Little Ten Conference added two teams to the group in 1959 with Hartland Arrowhead and Ripon joining so the league had 12 teams. 

Waukesha County Freeman   November 5, 1959

Junior Mark Cloutier, Brians brother, was one of the mainstays who replaced Bob Monroe.  He was a hard driving fullback who scored several times on the year.  In the season finale, as he carried 20 times against West Bend, he had a slight leg injury on the very last play of the game/season.  Mark would be okey after resting after a few days.

Coach Licht was a supporter of the single -wing offense which was considered “old school” at the time as no one around used that formation.  He also employed, at times, the shotgun which was ahead of his time.  He had a philosophy that every opponent team had to prepare hard every week for his team.  How could you beat the success that Oconomowoc had?   

The defense was outstanding giving up only 413 total yards, 141 rushing.  Opponents were only 24 of 68 passing and allowing the Conney’s to intercept 14 balls.  The team also recovered 14 fumbles.  Phil Kienast was a nearly unstoppable linebacker, using his 210 pounds and his speed to level opponents with over 100 tackles. 

John Counsell, father of future Milwaukee Brewer coach, Craig, was recruited by coach Licht to be a quarterback because of his strong arm after seeing him throw a baseball in from the outfield.  Councell declined as he liked catching passes better than throwing.  He told Licht that it was fun to catch the ball and the coach replied that the idea wasn’t to have fun but to WIN!

So then, Licht talked Jim Braatz, also a baseball player, who didn’t play football as a freshman or as a sophomore to come out and play football.  With a good arm and running ability, Braatz proved to be a fit as the starting quarterback.  Councell would become media specialist with the Milwaukee Brewers.  Braatz later worked for Brownberry Ovens in Oconomowoc. 

Lineman Tom Bartz accepted a football scholarship to Maryland and played two seasons, 1964 and 1965 for the Denver Broncos and later worked for the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.  Bob Monroe taught school in Germantown.  Phil Kienast earned a scholarship to Notre Dame, suffered a knee injury and never played again but became a college professor.  Harold Roberts opened an excavating company as well as serving as Delafield’s fire chief.  Bill Holden attended UW-Madison, and at one time held the Big 10 high jump record.  After graduation he became an airline pilot.  These are but a few of the success stories for the teammates of 1959.

Coach Licht coached from 1936- 1961 and posted a career record of 143-49-15 while earning a spot in the WFCA Hall of Fame.  His football teams went undefeated six times and won 10 conference titles.  He also coached the school’s basketball tam winning three Little Ten championships.  He also served as the school’s athletic director for 30 years. 

1946…A SEASON WITH VARIOUS NOTES…PART 2

The season ending highlight was the story on the A.P. All-State team which was released on November 29.  Not much in the way of individual statistics except ages, height and weights and a few bits about notable players performance…” Great tackler, fast runner etc.” Few statistics other than scoring totals were often kept at this time.  As colleges began, in the 1920’s and 30’s it took a while for high schools in Wisconsin to start tracking individual player rushing, passing and receiving game and season stats.  Sometimes the stats that were reported were estimates.

The1946 A.P. All-State Team and some Player Information

From the Wisconsin State Journal, November 29, 1946

About several of the players on the squad: 

Tom McCormick of Madison Edgewood was All-State in 1945 as a junior and repeated in 1946, the first player to do so.  On the 1945 team there were two others that were ex-servicemen who were juniors as they returned to school.  But, because of their age, 20-years old, they were ineligible to play in 1946.  Milwaukee Washington, coached by Lisle Blackbourn, had three players on the team and five schools had two members.  A team with two players was South Milwaukee.  End Gene Clark and back Harry Hugasian were two of the three juniors on the 1946 squad.

There were a series of three weekly ballots submitted to the A.P. by coaches and sportswriters stating in week seven, dwindling the list down to 38 players.

As mentioned in my blog about Boscobel, running back Jerry Schafer led the state in scoring.  Jerry scored 162 points on 25 touchdowns and 12 extra points.  He scored a SWL Conference record 143 points in seven league games.

I also mentioned in a Clintonville story that Gladwin “Bobby” Born scored 11 touchdowns in 1947.  I found, thanks to A.P. stories and then research in the Appleton Post-Crescent that as a junior in 1946 he scored 17 touchdowns for a total of 102 points.  Here are some from a team that collected stats: In the New London game, he carried 19 times for 209 yards and two long scores.  Against Wabeno he scored twice and gained 219 of the teams 239 yards and followed up with six scores in a 60-0 win over Marion.  He made the final list but was not named to the 1946 All-State team, but the pollsters made up for it by naming him to the 1947 squad.

 For several seasons Bob Petruska of Lake Mills was considered one of the top players in the state.   In 1946 he led the state in rushing with 1,461 yards on only 94 carries for a 14.3 average.  He scored 15 times during the season, had a four-conference game punting average for a 52.0 per kick and six touchdown passes.  He was playing in ’46 with an injured right hand and completed 6-6 for 112-yards and twoscores.  In 1945 he tossed 14 touchdowns and ran for 12.

Then there’s Tom Curry of Tomah

One of the great stories of 1946 was about the Tomah Indians and their “little” left halfback, Tom Curry.  He was the “talk” of the state in 1946.  The team started a 33-game unbeaten streak in 1942 and in 1946 they went 8-0-0.  As a junior in 1945, Curry played quarterback scoring seven touchdowns and 12 extra-point kicks as well as passing eight touchdowns.  Against La Crosse Aquinas he had a 58-yard punt and against Westby Curry threw three touchdowns.  In basketball he scored 283 points.  In baseball he played shortstop and hit .414.  In track he broad jumped 19 ft., 6-inches.  In boxing he won three bouts.

Curry was now 16-years old in 1946, and he moved to the left halfback position.  The 5’4, 120-pound back was explosive.  Scoring 17 touchdowns and kicked 18 extra-points for a total of 120 points Tom had long touchdown runs of 72, 70, 66, 44, 41, 30, 29, 26, 24 and 20.  He threw three option scores. Curry had scoring games of 22, 21, 20, 20, 18 and 14.  Curry was listed in various papers as weighing 119, 120, 121, 138 or, in the case of the A.P. All-State Prep squad listed as weighing 128-pounds.  He is the smallest player ever to make first team All-State and he aslo, as previously mentioned, stared in other sports.  Besides being the class president Curry earned four letters in football and basketball, three in baseball and boxing and two in track.  That’s 16 varsity letters.  In basketball he played both guard and forward (At 5’4)!!

November 29, 1946, Wisconsin State Journal

Other Prep Notes on the Season:

Besides the A.P. stories, The Wisconsin State Journal reporter Joe Dommershauen was given a byline entitled “Prep Notes”.  Besides covering various Friday and Saturday games, Joe took information from many state-wide news reports.

He reported that John Lilly of Muscoda and Bud Carrington of Merrill both were credited with 100-yard touchdown runs.  With the ball on the 1-inch line, Lilly ran a fake punt play to score.  Carrington went from the opponent's goal line to his end zone with an interception.  I may have to update the record book with these two efforts.

Getting back to Boscobel’s Jerry Schaefer.  When he reported for fall practice the school only had 26 players showed up and 12 were freshmen.  Eight of the 26 weighed 120-pouns or less.  Boscobel finished in third place in the SWAL and a 6-2 record.

Fullback Warren Lay of Jefferson averaged 10.5 yards per carry.   His top game was against Delafield St. John’s Military Academy when he carried the ball 17 times for a 11.1 average. He also didn't make the final cut for the All-State team.

Ashland not only ended Wausau’s 46-game win streak, and they only lost one game, a 7-6 defeat to Superior Central.  The Oredockers won the Wisconsin-Michigan Conference title, and they scored their first win over Ironwood in 25-years.

St. Patrick's High School in Eau Claire (Now known as Regis) had to cancel two games due to outbreaks of polio.   As recounted in my book, this disease was the scurge of the nation that hit a high point in the early 1950’s before a cure was available.  St. Patrick's lost out on playing “bookend” games, the first was to be the season opener against Rochester (MN) Lourdes and their next to final game against Medford.  Shawano also had to halt play for 10-days in early October as two players contracted polio.

On October 26 Dick Hartman of Milwaukee Washington kicked a, then, state record 60-yard field goal.  That same day, Dick Tracy of Milwaukee Boy’s Tech duplicated the feat but becaues there were 12 Tech players on the field it was nullified. 

Despite earning weekly A.P. notice six times during the season, Allen Bostad of Stevens Point failed to make the A. P. All-State team.

Algoma quarterback, Bob Zastrow, in a 38-6 win over Sturgeon Bay on November 2 threw four touchdowns, ran six-yards for a touchdown, ran 80-yards for a score of an interception.

In early November the WIAA voted to modify the 19-year-old age for participation in sports.  The current rule was amended so that if a player in a current sport turned 19, he could continue to play in that sport but not any later sports. As an example, if at the start of the fall season a 19-year-old would not be eligible but if he turned 19 during that season, he could continue playing that sport.

Finally, Manitowoc ran into defeats on two sucessive weekends.  Leading 6-0 against Green Bay East, fullback Eddie Wagner dropped back to punt, but center Bill McElliott snapped the ball over Wagners head.  East recovered and two plays later they scored, kicked the extra point and won.  The next week tied 7-7 against Sheboygan Central, Wagner again dropped back to punt.  McElliott again snapped the ball over Wagners head.  Wagner picked the ball up and attempted torun with the ball and was buried by Sheboygan’s defenders.  Central scored the deciding score and won 14-7.

1946 was a very good year for the press to communicate better prep information.

1946…A SEASON WITH VARIOUS NOTES…PART 1

World War II finally ended in September 1945 with the signing of the Japanese surrender.  The 1945 season went on as usual with many returning veterans taking up their former or new coaching positions.

This is about 1946, a year that saw long win streaks end, begin or continue.  Many interesting stories…here, they will be brief…about those streaks, players and coaches.

In 1945 the Associated Press, through the Wisconsin Football Coaches Association, presented the first “official” All-State football team.  The A.P. also filed recaps to all the newspapers that handled their services.  Each Saturday or Sunday many papers around the state published the A.P. recap of the top games of Friday.  A person reading the recaps could learn a lot about the top teams and players.  Besides the All-State teams many people didn’t get info outside of their local area until this time.  In 1945 the A.P. also started another storyline by keeping track of the undefeated teams starting in week five.  It was mainly just a list with very little additional info.  In 1946 things changed as the A.P. began including additional information about some of the undefeated teams.  The A. P. posted their undefeated list on Tuesdays and a recap of what was entitled “The Weekly Prep Honor Roll” highlighted the top efforts from the previous weekend that included an additional Honor Roll list of those nominated by the team coach or sportswriters from their area.

 Now, on with the stories.

First, the streaks. 

The great Wausau 46-game winning streak, coached by Win Brockmeyer, was snapped in game two by a good Ashland team, 13-7.  The Lumberjacks ended the year with a 5-1-2 record.  Their conference winning streak of 70-games would continue until a 13-6 loss to Stevens Point in game three of the 1949 season.

Gale Quandt was guiding his Tomah Indians to an undefeated 8-0-0 season and was in the midst of a 33-game unbeaten streak.  The streak began with a 6-6 tie to Westby at the end of 1942 and would conclude in game two in the 1947 season with a 13-0 loss to Reedsburg. Tomah won four consecutive West Central Conference championships under Quandt.

Cedarburg, under the tutelage of Vince Cibik, lost their season opener 8-0 to West Bend but the next week there was a 6-6 tie against Port Washington.  That game started a 30-game undefeated streak of 27-0-3 that ended in the 1949 season finale vs. Greendale, 14-13.

The other big streak was done by Two Rivers (As recounted in my stories “A Tale of Two Rivers”.) a team that finished 1946 with a 9-0-0 record and 29-game win streak.  Coached by Ed Hall in 1942 and continued by Harry O’Mealy from 1943-46.  O’Mealy left Two Rivers after the 1946-47 school year and while the Raiders posted a 6-2 record in 1947, they lost the season opener to Manitowoc39-12 to end the win streak.  The 1946 Two Rivers team scored the second most points by any other state high school team with 260.

The Team that scored the most points was Madison Edgewood which put up 287 in an 8-0-0 regular season.  The Crusaders elected to play a “Charity Game” against Chicago Mt. Carmel.  On Sunday November 17, after all other state high school’s season had concluded.  Coach Earl Wilke had his team leading 14-7 before they collapsed, losing 30-14 as Mt. Carmel’s star back, Patsy Rocco scored four times in the fourth quarter.  He ended with all five Mt. Carmel’s touchdowns.  The loss ended the Edgewood 24-game streak.

After going 6-0-1 in 1945, the Oconomowoc Cooney’s (Now more politically correct…the Racoons) was 8-0-0 in 1946 and the streak would eventually reach 20-games, ending in mid-season, 1947.  The 1946 team was coach Vince Licht’s third undefeated team since he took over the program in 1936. 

The Undefeated List:

At a time when the Associated Press introduced the first official All-State teams in 1945 the Press also released seasonal lists of the top teams in the state.  Their lists were of unbeaten teams for the year.  Each season from 1945-1954 the lists included both public and private schools and included those teams that had ties.  The A.P. not only released the lists but included information about team winning streaks.  They released the lists starting about the fifth or sixth week of the season, concluding with the final tally in early November. The lists covered teams starting at having a 5-0-0 record to those that would finish with a 9-0-0.  This information helped lead me write stories on a number of schools in my book or in my blogs including Two Rivers, Cedarburg, Milwaukee Messmer, Ladysmith, Racine St. Catherine, Milwaukee Marquette, Wausau and Green Bay West.

There were also several interesting facts.  One, or actually in several seasons in the Milwaukee City Conference there were multiple undefeated teams as the schools were playing round-robin schedules each year.  At one point the City Conference had as many as 12-14 teams with each playing seven league games and maybe a non-conference opponent. In 1945 Milwaukee Washington had an 8-0-0 record followed by Custer and North with 7-0-0 years. 1950 saw Milwaukee East (Riverside) and Milwaukee Pulaski share the conference title with 8-0-0 records.  1952 three teams were undefeated.  Boy’s Tech (Bradley Tech today) won the title by going 8-0-0 but Washington and Rufus King were close for second place with 7-0-1 records.  Almost 11,000 fans watched Washington and King play in a season ending game as they played to a 13-13 tie.

The 1949 list showed 22 schools with records waring from three schools, Ladysmith, La Crosse Aquinas and Lake Mills with 9-0-0 records to Sturgeon Bay which posted a 6-0-2 season total.

The first list, 1945, showed that 21 state schools had undefeated seasons.  Three of those schools had ties including one with two even matches. 

With the 1946 season drawing to a close, by October 29, there were 21 teams still undefeated.  The list had been trimmed from 39 in week five to 30 and 26 at the end of the next two weeks.  In the final weekend the list had dropped to only 12 undefeated squads.

Below is the 1946 final A. P. listing.  It should be noted that only one Wisconsin school, Madison Edgewood, had one more game to play.  

Eau Claire Leader-Telegram   November 14, 1946

As stated before, Edgewood lost to Chicago Mt. Carmel so, in the end there were only 11 undefeated 11-player teams in 1946.

In 1946 some of the schools played 8-player and some played 6-player ball.  Several of the top non-11-player teams were Cameron, DeForest and Mazomanie.  Cameron, playing 8-player ball breezed through an 8-0-0 year and scored 355 points. Like Edgewood DeForest, 7-1-0 in 1946 dropped their final game to Mazomanie after the 6-player poll was released. DeForest started with 6-player football in 1938, coached by Chet Carlson.  They were the 1946 Suburban Six-Conference champs.  Over nine seasons they had posted a 47-10 record.  Mazomanie started 6-player in 1941 and at the end of the 1946 season they had posted a 30-4 record.

Next time I will cover the 1946 A. P. All-State Team and brief stories about players and odds and ends on the year.